


All Alone, All Together

by whip_pan



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Era, Getting Together, Harry Welsh/Kitty Grogan (mentioned), M/M, Officers' Poker, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, Richard Winters/Lewis Nixon (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7164710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whip_pan/pseuds/whip_pan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d be lying if he said he didn’t understand Harry. He understood him just fine. He just didn’t want to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Alone, All Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dancinguniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/gifts).



> Thank you for the prompt, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thanks to jouissant for doing such a stellar beta job and for calming my new fandom nerves.

The first time Lewis skipped out on them they weren’t sure how long it would take him to come back, so they just took a break. There was nothing else to do besides drink and talk, anyway. It wasn’t even late enough to go to bed.

They started the poker games in France to pass the time in the evening. They also helped Ron and Harry get acquainted. They quickly found out most of their shared interests involved alcohol, which worked just fine for Ron. Sometimes Dick dropped in, generally not to play but to talk. Best of all, for Ron, was the opportunity to simply hang around Carwood. He remained steadfastly sober no matter how the game went. Ron liked it about him, although privately, he thought that if you were going to smoke, you might as well drink.

Ron helped Carwood light a cigarette, and the three of them traded smoke in silence. Then Carwood said, “Any news from Kitty?” and Harry broke out into a grin and dug out a couple of envelopes from his pocket. Kitty was leading all of her church’s efforts to contribute supplies to the war effort. She was nearly finished making her wedding dress. Wasn’t Harry so thoughtful to send his reserve chute home in order to save money on fabric?

“You should tell him how you two met,” Carwood said, tilting his head in Ron’s direction.

He dutifully looked over at Harry and was treated to another earful about Kitty Grogan, the most beautiful woman in Wilkes-Barre. He’d seen a picture of her; one of the three Harry carried around in his pocket. It was blurry, as though she hadn’t been ready for the camera, but it showed off her nice smile, the dimples in her cheeks. She wore her hair back in a scarf, save for the bangs that hung neatly over her forehead.

They met one day when she came into the store Harry worked at in the afternoons in high school. She’d recently moved to town from Indiana. Harry took it upon himself to show her around, “just so she wouldn’t get lost,” and that was that.

Harry was tipsy, erring on the side of drunk, wearing a sloppy smirk that showcased his front teeth. Ron liked Harry, appreciated that Easy had finally gotten back another experienced officer. True, he got sloshed easily, but that meant Ron could sneak looks at his cards.

That night, after they realized Lewis was a lost cause, he and Carwood helped Harry to bed.

“Shit,” Harry sighed as he dropped all his gear on a chair and sat on the bed to tug off his boots, “I really miss her.”

“I know,” Carwood said. “You’ll see her again soon.”

“I’ve never had a chance to live with her, married and all,” he said. “Left before we could do that.”

Ron couldn’t imagine feeling so strongly for someone, especially someone who’d been so far away for so long. What would you do without the proximity? He barely thought of the woman he technically got to call his wife. When he remembered her, he wondered if he’d be able to fall in love with her for real when the war ended.

Harry flopped back on the bed, an arm thrown over his eyes. “Did you get a chance to with your wife, Carwood?”

“Not really,” he said. “Remember, Harry, we got married during one of the weekend passes Sobel let me keep.”

Ron inched towards the door. He didn’t really want to hear this conversation. What was the woman’s name? Margaret. Margaret Lipton. She sounded nice, the way most girls were nice. Carwood deserved a nice girl, just like Harry did.

“That’s too bad.”

“There’ll be time after.” Carwood looked over at Ron. “Presuming we get there.”

They walked down the hallway to their bedrooms. They were adjacent to one another. Ron sent Malarkey up ahead earlier to pick his out. He was so used to it now he just caught Ron’s look when they pulled into town before running off down the streets to look for the best house. Carwood laughed every time he caught the exchange.

“Sir,” he said with a nod.

“Didn’t we agree to drop that if we’re not on official business?” Ron asked.

Carwood looked across the hallway with a shrug. “Habit.”

“Do you want to come in?”

Ron knew he shouldn’t, knew he should leave Carwood be. They were married, Carwood for the right reasons, presumably. Ron blatantly ignored it every time he allowed his thoughts to stray. Sometimes he didn’t care, because home for him had shifted to this one point, just his men in general and Carwood in particular, but he knew it wasn’t fair, or right, or even legal. The intensity of it floored him every time. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t understand Harry. He understood him just fine. He just didn’t want to.

“Did you have something to say to me?” Carwood asked once the door shut behind him.

Ron stood close enough to see the pucker of his skin where the scar cut through his cheek. He wanted to reach over, maybe trace it with his fingers, he didn’t know what.

“I found some nice music boxes today,” he said. “Thought you might want to send one home.”

“What do they play?”

“German songs,” he shrugged. “You could ask Nix, but I thought Margaret might know them.”

“And why would you want me to send a music box to her?”

Margaret Lipton. Married, childless but married.

When did Carwood become so significant? Since he drew that Kraut sniper’s fire away from the men, if Ron was inclined to be honest with himself. He couldn’t believe he was truly as good as they said until he saw for himself. And then he caught himself looking for excuses to talk to Carwood, to simply be around him. At first he could pass it off as business; Carwood knew more about the men of Easy than he did. But it wasn’t like that anymore. It hadn’t been like that for weeks. The further along the war went the less he could pretend these feelings were all a side effect of the stress.

“She’s a music teacher, isn’t she? Gives piano and voice lessons?”

“I’m surprised you remembered.”

Ron shrugged. “Here,” he said, walking over to the dresser for the boxes, “take whichever you like. Or both of them, if you want.”

Carwood picked out one of them, and Ron had to look away, mortified with himself for wondering if he chose the green because that was her favorite color.

It took Ron a long time to fall asleep that night.

****

“Come on, you can’t,” Carwood said. It was the third time in a row Lewis left the game with his money still on the table, grinding everything to a halt.

Ron stared at him for a moment before putting down the wad of crumpled bills. “I would’ve won it, anyway.”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Speirs. I’m much better at this than you,” Harry said. He rested his head against the back of his chair and looked at Ron, a lazy grin on his face. His cigarette burned to a stub long ago but he didn’t notice; it was still between his fingers. “You still owe me that tea set, by the way.”

Ron shot back a look he knew was a notch too serious for just a game of poker. He didn’t really care about the game, but if they were going to play, they ought to play.

Carwood added, “You were doing better than me, at least,” and Ron caught the hints of the smile he was trying to suppress.

“He just keeps leaving it there.” He gathered up the cards and shuffled them before sliding them across the table to Carwood. They usually went in Carwood’s jacket pocket, tucked between other odds and ends, everything from bandages to stubs of pencils to crumpled letters he didn’t like to admit he only skimmed at that point.

He was sleepy, ready to call it a night although it was usually Carwood’s job to suggest they break up the game. The beers he had - two or three, he couldn’t remember but Carwood would - plus a few fingers of Lewis’s whiskey weren’t turned around much by the cup of coffee he scrounged up an hour ago. The battalion seemed unable to escape torrents of rain every night this week. He didn’t mind; being able to block out the sounds of a city swelled with soldiers helped him get to sleep.

“Do you think he went to go find Winters?” Harry asked. “That’s my guess. Hell, I’ll bet on that.”

“Well, if they get caught up talking to each other, he won’t be back anytime soon,” Ron said. He knocked back the last of his cold coffee and stood. “No point in continuing if we’re a man short.”

He and Harry threw out all the beer bottles while Carwood straightened up the dining room table.

“Let’s get you settled,” he heard Carwood say to Harry. He watched as Carwood helped Harry gather up his things and go down the hallway to his bedroom. While he waited for Carwood to come back, he almost lit another cigarette, but decided it’d be better to save it. Finally Carwood returned, frowning.

“I’m worried about Nix,” he said. “He doesn’t seem right.”

“He’s drinking too much.”

“He always drank a lot, it’s just never affected his mood so much. I think the jump he went on today really shook him up.”

“Would’ve been easier for us to play with the bottle instead of him,” Ron said. “Every goddamn hand felt like pulling teeth.”

“He did watch all those boys die,” Carwood said gently. “I heard the CO snuffed it, too, so he’s got to write the letters.”

Ron didn’t say anything to that. He hated writing those letters, especially because he made a point to put extra distance between him and his men.

 “Your room’s upstairs, you really ought to get to bed,” Carwood said, leading the way to the stairs. “Sir,” he added.

Ron, trying for humor, said, “Didn’t I order you not to call me that when we’re alone?” He caught Carwood’s smirk in the hallway mirror and clapped him on the back, hard, in retaliation. “I can’t figure you out, Carwood. You’ll smoke but you won’t drink, you’ll gamble but you won’t whore.”

“I drank at home,” Carwood said. “Just thought it would be best to rid myself of that habit during the war.”

“Does it ever bore you, sitting around with a bunch of drunks?”

“Not when they’ve got their wits about them.”

****

He gave Harry the tea set and won an excellent telescope from Lewis. He didn’t really know what he would do with it, but it was inlaid with some sort of green gemstone that glittered when he held it up to the light. “You look like a pirate,” Carwood said, and Ron played along by fashioning an eye patch out of an old bit of bandage. He kept it on the rest of the game because it made Carwood laugh, then blamed it for his loss later when Lewis overtook him and won back the telescope, plus a drawerful candlesticks and ten dollars.

He liked it when Carwood laughed. He didn’t do that very often, but when he did, it showed off his nice smile, the way his eyes crinkled up when he was content. It made him look like he must have as a boy. As he understood it, Carwood didn’t have much of a childhood, forced into manhood early by his father’s death, but whenever he spoke of his life before the war, he always sounded fond.

“The boys would never believe this,” he said, gesturing to Ron’s getup.

“They’ll never know,” he said. He finished off his beer and slid it next to Harry’s four empty bottles. It was Harry’s turn, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him - Ron wasn’t even sure where he put his cards.

“I wanted to be a pirate when I was a kid,” Harry said.

“Really?” Carwood asked.

“You bet. I read _Treasure Island_ about twenty times when I was in grade school.”

“I don’t think I read that one,” Ron said.

“Oh, it’s grand. The narrator’s a kid named Jim Hawkins, he becomes a cabin boy and gets to have all these adventures with a bunch of seamen and crooks. I wanted to run away and do that.”

“Maybe you should have joined the Navy,” Lewis said.

“Nah, I wanted that extra pay. Kitty’s been saving it all so we can start a family straightaway,” Harry said. “Well, after the wedding, anyway.”

“You’re a better man than all of us, Harry.”

Ron didn’t particularly want to talk about Kitty again. “I remember liking Jack London stories,” he said. “ _Call of the Wild_ , _White Fang_.”

“You would,” Lewis said. “All that man versus nature shit.”

“He spent some time as a sailor.”

“Really?” Carwood asked. “I thought he went looking for gold in the Klondike.”

“That, too,” Ron said. “He spent a lot of time on the water, though, got his start on a sealing ship when he was seventeen. The prospecting in places like the Klondike happened after he dropped out of college.”

“Well, that makes me feel better about dropping out.”

“But you’ll go back after, won’t you?”

“I hope so.”

“You should,” Ron said. “You would definitely benefit from it.”

“What’d you study again, Lip?” Lewis asked.

“Well, I didn’t get that far, but I’d like to study engineering, if I go back.”

“I’m sure you’ll do very well with it,” Ron said.

“Thank you,” Carwood said. He tapped his cards against his palm.

If Ron knew that they next day they would find Landsberg, he would have asked Carwood to stick around after the game broke up. Even if they didn’t do anything but sit together and watch as the moon rose outside the window, it would have been a good memory for him to hold onto. But he didn’t know.

****

He listened to Liebgott’s translation of the prisoner’s words. He couldn’t stop worrying his bottom lip. It was a nervous tic he hated about himself, but if he didn’t do it, he would start to shake, and that would be worse. It took effort to keep his eyes on the camp itself, on the people stripped of everything but bone and skin, instead of the sky, which somehow still looked serenely blue. What did the man say they were? Jews. Poles. Gypsies. Anyone undesirable. And there was a woman’s camp one railroad stop over.

He was a practical man. They ought to gather more information, to help where they could immediately, to find food and water. It was his job to lead the men, and he needed to lead them now, to organize them into useful action. He walked through those gates first, before Dick, even, so he could do this too. But he couldn’t seem to do anything besides than stumble through the crowds. He passed soldiers on the ground, staring at nothing. He passed prisoners who clutched at his clothes, kissed his face, dragged him into tight embraces. He passed piles of bodies.

Eventually the smell got to him. Nausea rolled through his body. He ducked behind one of the tents and stuck a finger down his throat to make the vomit come up faster.

When he straightened up, Carwood stood before him. Without a word he handed over a handkerchief and canteen. Ron wiped at his mouth, then took a swig of water.

“Are you alright?”

He nodded.

Carwood’s eyes were wet. Ron handed back his things and shoved past him.

Lewis found him a moment later with orders from Dick, and he didn’t speak to Carwood the rest of the day except to organize supplies.

****

Dick left as soon as he finished explaining the situation and their orders. Ron couldn’t really imagine more camps, but that’s what he said. That, more than anything, crystallized the anger that had been building up in him all day. He wanted to go out and shoot something. If he left the CP, he might actually try. He sat at the rickety table he was using as a desk, eyeing his pistol and Tommy gun, which he was in the middle of cleaning. Someone knocked on the door.

“Enter.”

“Sir,” Carwood said as he walked into the room, “do you have any orders for the men?”

“Did you hear?” he asked Carwood. “They’re finding more camps. Worse ones, even, where it seems like the whole point was killing people, not just keeping them locked up.”

Carwood dropped his gaze down to the floor.

“I can’t believe we left them in there,” Ron said. He dug his fingers into his palms.

“Once we’re gone they’ll be able to put them in town.”

“Doesn’t excuse it.”

“Sir,” Carwood said again. Ron looked away. The distance he’d been chipping away at was back again. He should be relieved, but he wasn’t. “I wanted to mention something else.”

“What?”

“Nixon’s wife is divorcing him. Sent him a letter, he got it this morning.”

“Jesus.”

“Thought I’d let you know in case you wanted to go talk to him. I don’t think he’s taking it well.”

“Thank you.” When Carwood didn’t move to leave, he said, “Anything else?”

Carwood took a step closer. He ran a hand through his hair, his mouth tight. Ron watched him, curious about what he might say.

“Are you alright?”

When he spoke, Ron wanted to laugh. He should have known Carwood would ask that question. “I could ask you the same.”

“You didn’t seem very well earlier in the camp.” Carwood took another step in Ron’s direction. “We could talk about it.” His gaze drifted to the half-assembled guns. “Would you like to? The boys are alright for now, I could stay awhile.”

Please, Ron wanted to say. Please stay and never leave. How selfish of him. “Go get some sleep, Lieutenant,” he said instead.

Carwood frowned. “I really don’t mind. It might help.”

“Go,” Ron said shortly.

Carwood grimaced. “Sir,” he said, and left.

****

“Nix.” He knocked on the doorway, pushing himself into the room before Lewis could answer.

“Did you hear? We’re leaving tomorrow.” Lewis stood at the desk in his room, an empty glass in his hand. His face looked very young, his eyes very dark. In Ron’s opinion, he looked like a college boy hanging around the upperclassmen, out of his depth but unsure of what to do besides sticking by them as best he could.

“I heard.”

“Do you want a drink?”

“Sure.” He accepted a glass and took a sip, surprised to taste cognac instead of whiskey.

“I couldn’t find any,” Lewis said in explanation.

Ron surprised himself by saying, “I think I have a bottle. Do you want it?”

As they walked to his room, he said, “I heard your wife wants a divorce.”

“It’s not that she wants a divorce. It’s that she’s getting a divorce, period.”

“That’s tough.”

“Oh, I deserve it. It’s not like I married her for any reason other than that my parents wanted me to.” He picked at the wallpaper while Ron rooted around in his footlocker for the old bottle of whiskey he’d been dragging around. “I cheated on her, too, so really, it’s all for the best.”

Ron chose to pour out two generous glasses instead of responding. He shoved one into Lewis’s hand. How the hell he managed to get into this conversation, he didn’t know. Carwood would be better at this. Or Dick, he understood Lewis better than Lewis did himself.

He needed the distraction.

“You have a kid, right?” he asked.

“A daughter. She’s taking her, plus the goddamn dog.”

Ron smiled into his glass.

“I feel rotten for being relieved about it.”

“No, I understand.”

Lewis looked up. His lips quirked up, a gesture that made Ron feel that Lewis, despite being tipsy, had the upper hand.

“Do you really?”

Ron cleared his throat. “Sure. I wish my wife would send me one of those letters.”

“Right,” Lewis said slowly.

"Can I ask…” He bit at his lip. “You and Dick are good friends, right?”

“Sure. Best of friends.” He looked at Ron for a long moment. “Got it?”

Ron swallowed. “Yeah, I think I do. You’re a good match.”

It wasn’t really a shock. He had sensed they were men like him, not that there had been any way to confirm it until now. But he saw the looks and touches. He sensed the fondness even before he recognized its particular nature.

“How did you work it out?” he asked.

Lewis shrugged. “How the hell does anything like that happen? It just came together.”

“But then-”

“Ron, look.” He didn’t sound very drunk all of a sudden. “You ought to be more careful. It’s embarrassing to watch you look at him, and that’s coming from me.”

Ron ducked his head down before he could start to flush. He nodded at the floor.

“You could always tell him. He might let you down easy. He’s a good man.”

“You think I don’t know that?” He took another sip of whiskey, staring past Lewis’s head at the ugly draperies. “I can’t do that to him.” He wasn’t sure how they managed to twist this conversation around so spectacularly when it was supposed to be about Lewis, so he added, “Are you alright?”

“That’s it? No thank you?” Lewis sighed. “I don’t think anyone’s alright tonight.” He finished his drink with one long swallow. “I’m keeping that,” he said, pointing to Ron’s whiskey. “Now if you excuse me, there’s a certain redheaded someone I’m in the mood to see, and you’re definitely not him.”

****

As a child, when Ron’s mother thought he was being self-centered, she would say, “Ronald, stop moping. Don’t you know so many people have it worse?” Ron thought about that as he tried to fall asleep. The people still locked in that camp had it worse. He knew this, and every time he thought about them, his stomach rolled.

But it didn’t stop him from hoping, selfishly, that Carwood’s wife would send him a Dear John letter. _Dear Carwood_ , it would read, _I’m sorry to tell you like this but I’ve found someone else… Dear Car, Forgive me, but you’ve been gone for so long and you hardly write anymore… Darling, I don’t love you anymore. I’m moving on and you should too._

****

Two nights later they played poker on a dusty coffee table while Dick struggled through a book in the corner. Ron looked between him and Lewis, weighing it in his mind. The two of them made sense together. It satisfied him even as it made his heart ache.

He tried not to look at Carwood so much, but it was difficult because he was sitting across from him, like usual. He smiled at Ron when he dealt the cards, even though they hadn’t spoken to each other casually since Landsberg. Somehow that was worse than if Carwood ignored him. He thought about how short he had been with Carwood; it was not the first time he bereted himself for it today.

The mood was awkward at first, as though all five of them were aware they were putting extra effort into appearing cheerful when none of them really felt like it. But then Lewis put on music and they broke out cigarettes, and slowly, they slid back into that comfortable place Ron had come to appreciate. He had never been the type to make many friends, but he liked all of these men, certainly more than he should while they were all still in a warzone.

“Damn, I have to fold,” Harry said. He slapped his cards down on the table. “Do you think there’ll be a lot of Krauts following that order to attack as a guerrilla resistance?”

“We’re prepared for it if it happens,” Dick said. “I just worry that they might act erratic now that Hitler’s dead. It could make things dangerous.”

“War’s dangerous, Dick,” Lewis said.

“More dangerous, then.”

“It’ll be easier for us,” Ron said. “They’ll be confused, scattered, making mistakes. We just need to keep on high alert.”

Lewis stood, stretching. “Any requests?” he asked, gesturing to the phonograph that had gone silent a moment ago. He stomped over, purposefully striking the heels of his boots against the hardwood floor. Dick raised his eyebrows, and Lewis grinned at him.

“Do they have anything recent?” Harry asked.

“Define recent.”

“How about anything in English?” Carwood said.

“That might be a little trickier. Whoever lives here is very Aryan,” Lewis said, tapping a photograph of a stern looking man posing with two young boys. “I’m sure they’ve been saluting good ol’ Hitler for years.”

“It doesn’t matter what you put on, then, no one but you will understand it.”

“Didn’t take German in college, Ron?”

“No. Call me if you want to carry on a conversation in Latin or Greek, though.”

“You’re shitting me,” Harry said.

“Nope. I studied Classics at Boston University.”

“Watch out, Speirs is secretly one of those academic snobs,” Lewis said delightedly. “And you thought I was bad, Harry.”

“Well, he doesn’t put all that extra effort into pronouncing the fucking French exactly right, Lew.”

“At least neither of you are as bad as Webster,” Carwood said, which made everyone, Dick included, burst into laughter.

Lewis started to flip through the records, and Ron said, “We better get up to the Eagle’s Nest first. Ike owes us that, if he’s handing Berlin over to the Ruskies.”

“I’m sure it’s very decadent up there,” Carwood said. He gave Ron another smile. One more like those Ron had come to expect from him.

He grinned back. The opportunities for requisition were one thing - he wanted to get his hands on a Nazi banner before they burned them - but even more than that, he simply wanted to walk in as part of the conquering army. “It’ll be like when Alexander the Great took Persepolis.”

****

Ron walked into the night air for another cigarette after the game broke up. The moon shed light over a small creek, which made him think of Haguenau. If they were lucky, there wouldn’t be any more of that. He knew more men were bound to die - war was tricky that way, especially towards the end when guards went down prematurely - but hopefully casualties would be minimal. They ate away at the men’s spirits, and he needed them focused for this final push inward.

The Pacific theater already hung in the back of his mind. There was no reason they wouldn’t send Easy there too. He’d be lying if he said the thought didn’t excite him, but he could think of more than a few men who would resent it. Men who deserved to go home. Men who did their duty but weren’t the sort to be able to handle years and years of it. War wasn’t everyone’s profession.

“May I join you?” Carwood asked as he stepped outside.

“Carwood,” he greeted. “Nice job tonight.”

“I think that’s the first time I outplayed you.”

“Your bets have gotten bolder.” He took out a squished carton of cigarettes. “Want one?”

To Ron’s satisfaction, Carwood touched his wrist briefly when he caught the flame from his lighter.

He was surprised by how much he wanted to kiss him. The yearning curled its way through him, weakly at first but now as forceful as a forward marching brigade, and it was all he could think about. He wanted to press the lengths of their bodies together. He and Carwood were precisely the same height, and, insanely, the moment he realized this was as satisfying as the first time he made a clean kill while hunting with his father, his fastest run up Currahee, when he cut himself free from his parachute in Normandy. He wanted to take the cigarette from Carwood’s mouth, grind it under his boot, and press their mouths together. He wanted Carwood breathless and flushed. He was perfectly aware of how embarrassing and unprofessional that was, but his body didn’t seem to care. He looked steadfastly at the creek to make sure Carwood couldn’t read his face.

After a long, companionable silence, Carwood spoke. “Ron.”

“Yes?”

“I know.”

Ron froze. He could feel his heart in his throat. For a moment he couldn’t think of anything to say, and then when he finally spoke, it sounded far too defensive to his ears. “What are you talking about?”

Carwood hesitated, then continued, “I’ve noticed. I’m… I’m interested.”

He whipped his head up. Carwood was looking at him steadily, but he caught his nervousness in the way he set his shoulders.

Ron stomped out his cigarette. “Carwood,” he said. He smiled broadly. “Carwood.”

Carwood stepped close to him, so they were mere inches from each other. He flicked his cigarette to the ground. Ron pressed his thumb into Carwood’s scar, hungrily taking in the way Carwood shivered.

“How long?” he asked.

“Long enough.”

They couldn’t stay outside. Ron led the way to his room, quickly so they wouldn’t run into anyone. Once they were sequestered away, Carwood leaned in, but Ron stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“What about your wife?” He moved his hand up, cupping Carwood’s cheek, tucking his hair behind his ear.

“What about yours?”

“You know that’s different.”

Carwood took a moment to respond. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to the way I was before,” he said. “And from what I understand, she doesn’t want to see me try.”

“This is a hell of a different direction.”

Carwood leaned in again, and this time Ron let him. The kiss wasn’t anything more than a peck on the lips, but the sense of relief it gave him nearly made him want to cry. He pulled Carwood over to the bed, kissing his mouth, the scar on his cheek. Carwood tugged him down. He brushed his lips over Carwood’s jaw, working his way back up to his mouth, where he kissed him soundly. When they broke apart, he breathed in deeply and caught the fond glint of Carwood’s eyes in the dark.

 ****

Much later, Ron let himself feel the satisfaction of being able to hold Carwood in his arms. He felt like he was dreaming, even though he knew he wasn’t.

“I should probably go,” Carwood said. He was fiddling with the buttons on Ron’s shirt.

Ron held him tighter. “Wait just a little longer.”

****

The next day Ron took care to sit closer to Lewis than Carwood while they ate dinner, even though he wanted to be pressed up against him. Dick and Harry sat across from them, the former going over a map Ron wanted to check out in detail before the evening got too far along.

Earlier, on his way to go take a piss, he ran across Lewis. Lewis took one look at his face and said, “You sap.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ron said.

“Right,” Lewis said. Then, quieter, “Just be careful.” He clapped Ron on the shoulder and went away whistling.

Ron figured Lewis told Dick about him and Carwood. He didn’t mind. He caught Dick looking at the both of them when they sat down, caught the slight nod he figured he ought to take as permission to be discreet.  He spent the whole day chastising himself whenever his thoughts strayed to Carwood instead of their mission. They were traveling in enemy territory, and Easy needed him at his best. But still, he wondered at odd moments if anyone would be able to tell if something was different with him – not what, exactly, just that something had changed.

“Make sure you get some sleep,” Carwood said to Webster, who had just wrapped up his patrol report. They sent out a few groups to make sure the perimeter was clear, and so far, everyone reported that they didn’t see any German soldiers, just citizens who couldn’t stop telling every American they met that they weren’t Nazis. Ron was glad for it; they weren’t far from Berchtesgaden and he wanted to get there without a hitch.

He met Webster’s salute and watched him leave.

“What?” he said, when he noticed Carwood’s stare.

“Nothing.”

“Surely it must be something.”

“I just don’t understand why you dislike him.”

“I don’t dislike him,” Ron said. “He’s very bright.”

“Lip’s got a point,” Lewis said. “You never liked him, even back when he hooked up with Easy in Haguenau.”

“He’s always done what’s asked of him,” Dick said.

“It’s just that he came back under unusual circumstances,” Ron said. “Carwood was sick, and there was that other new officer, what’s his name?”

“Jones,” Carwood supplied.

“Right.”

“Fact remains you prefer some other guys much more,” Harry said. “Grant, Tab, Carwood…” He flashed a grin. Ron curbed a strong desire to punch out those gappy teeth. After all, there wasn’t any reason to read into what he said. He wouldn’t guess.

But then Harry shook his head, laughing. “Christ,” he said abruptly. “It’s just my luck I got stuck with all the queers in the goddamn army.”


End file.
